Help Battery keeps going dead

[Lyrad]

I had the battery checked and its fine, Dec 08 I had the same problem and the wire harness was repaired and tested cost me $90 buck!!! Don't want to pay this again and again, does anybody else have or had this problem?? should the wire be replaced??? does anyone know what can cause this other than heat??? Could trying to start the bike for to long effect these wires???
Thanks for any help
daryl

[91cb-1]

Yay battery trouble, i had this all through the winter, not fun i can tell you, first thing you gotta check is your regulator rectifier, if its shot to shit you might be over loading the battery or just not getting a charge to it, next thing to check is that all your earths are earthed to the bike, this could be shorting your battery. your brushes may need to be changed as if these are bust your battery aint gonna charge, you've pretty much gotta go through every electrical thing that is on your bike and make sure it all works; leads, cdi, coils the list goes on check out the service manual under charging to see what i mean. you'll need someone who speaks robot to decifer it

[marty]

i have found this guide to be helpful in the past: http://www.sportbikez.net/forum/f8/how-to-troubleshoot-a-charging-system-11591/

[marty]

i can't believe i forgot to mention this in my previous post. the honda voltage regulator from the late 80s and early 90s is a piece of garbage. i would look in to finding a replacement for it... the regulator from the late '90s and '00s is much improved, or you can splice in a '00s suzuki gsxr regulator like i did. the suzuki part can be found pretty cheap via ebay and the conversion is not very difficult.

[Lyrad]

I found a connector with three wires and one is fried!! to sh$t. I wire is coming from the generator? the right side of the bike does anyone what gauge of wire i need or it 18 gauge good does it have to be special kind of wire or hardware store kind?

[clarkdw]

What color is the burnt wire. I can get a better idea what gauge if I can check my bike for the same one. Is it one of three that come from the right side engine cover? Hardware store wire will do fine if you make sure to get a heavy enough gauge and  be super carefull to get really good connections. Best to solder and shrink tube the connection.

[Lyrad]

yeah its a yellow wire and its coming from the right side like you said My mechanic thinks its the  regulator rectifier he found me one for $100 Canadian. but i haven't ordered it yet

[marty]

if it's the regulator/rectifier, there should be 5 wires - 3 yellow, 1 green and 1 red. when you say right side, are you facing the bike or sitting on it?

[clarkdw]

yeah its a yellow wire and its coming from the right side like you said My mechanic thinks its the  regulator rectifier he found me one for $100 Canadian. but i haven't ordered it yet

12 or 14 gauge hardware store wire will be fine but I can't stress enough the importance of getting a really good connection wherever you splice it in. Otherwise in a year or six months you will be looking at the same problem. Repair the wire and connector first and then sort out whether the Reg/Rect is bad after. Check all the ground connections as well while you are at it. Clean them up and make sure they are tight.

[a_morti]

yeah its a yellow wire and its coming from the right side like you said My mechanic thinks its the  regulator rectifier he found me one for $100 Canadian. but i haven't ordered it yet

The plug with three yellows is the generator connection. Cut that plug out and replace it with a good solid plug, eg. from VWP:
http://www.vehicle-wiring-products.eu/VWP-onlinestore/connectors/multiconnectors.php
the bigger the better, and fit together with grease. Put grease in all other charging system connectors anyway, as a matter of course.

It might be you are lucky and that fixes it but probably not. Find the next fault with this chart:
http://www.electrosport.com/technical-resources/library/diagnosis/pdf/fault-finding-diagram.pdf
i would bet on the stator, but don't ever guess as that is an expensive game!!


Fit CPU heat paste behind the regulator and double-earth the regulator to help it disperse heat. That's whether you have to replace it or not - again that chart will tell you what's to do.




Don't ride the bike with burnt out charging bits. If you have to ride it at all, then unplug the whole charging system and run it without lights on a fully charged battery total-loss style. You'll get a couple of starts and about 40 miles, if my experience is anything to go by.

[Lyrad]

repaired the wire and bought some good connectors from Wurth and checked to see if the battery was charging and it was so I think I got lucky but i will repair the wires properly and I will just check them as a periodical maintenance.
Thanks for all the help everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!